ere were momentous words and happenings
passing, for all Marcel was conveying news of the threat to their lives
which had brought him at such speed back to his home.

The older man, broad of shoulder, sturdy under his rough buckskin, was
no match for the youngster who towered over him. And that which he
lacked in stature was made up for in the undisturbed expression of his
face. Marcel was urgent in his youthful grasp of the threat
overshadowing. Steve, while apparently listening to him, seemed to be
absorbed in the movements of the strangers beyond the door.

Marcel's story was a brief outline, almost disjointed. It was the story,
roughly, as Keeko had brought it to him. He told of the purpose of the
man Nicol, bribed by Lorson Harris to steal the secret of their trade.
He told of Nicol's confession to Keeko that he had located the
whereabouts of the fort, and his purpose forthwith to raid it, and wipe
out its occupants, and so earn the price of his crime. He told of
Keeko's ultimate terror of this creature's proposals to herself and of
the desperate nature of her flight from Fort Duggan to warn Marcel, and
seek his protection.

It was all told without a thought for anything beyond the urgency of the
threat, and his own youthful absorption in the girl who had taught him
the meaning of love. In that supreme moment he had no thought for the
thing that had driven Steve out into the winter wilderness, fighting
the battle of his great purpose. He had no thought for the success or
failure that had attended him. Steve was there in the flesh, the same
"Uncle" Steve he had always known. It was sufficient. An-ina, too, was
there, safe and well, and the sight of her had banished his worst
anxieties. The lover's selfishness was his. Keeko was outside. She had
come with him to his home. She had promised him the fulfilment of his
man's great desire. Where then was the blame? Steve had no thought of
blame in his mind. And An-ina? An-ina's complete happiness lay in the
fact of her boy's return.

"Say, Uncle," Marcel cried in conclusion, with impulsive vehemence.
"It's been one hell of a trip. It certainly has. And I'd say a feller
don't know one haf the deviltry of this forsaken country till he's hit
it haf thawed."

"No." Steve smiled at the four figures he was watching as there flashed
through his mind the recollection of the journey of a white man, and a
woman, and two Indians, and a child at such a time of year a good many
s